Inside the New York Yankees clubhouse with MLB.com beat writer Bryan Hoch.

Game 149: Yankees vs. Blue Jays

TORONTO — Greetings from north of the border, where Alex Rodriguez is out of the lineup once again with that nagging thumb but says he’s feeling more encouraged now than he has since first suffering the injury. Hitting coach Kevin Long suggested a new grip, one that has A-Rod separating his hands by about a half an inch so that his left thumb doesn’t make contact with his top hand, and the Yankees’ third baseman felt comfortable with it while taking live BP. Now, he’s thinking real positively about starting on Saturday.

“It’s the best I’ve felt in over a month, since the Mauer groundball, there’s no question,” Rodriguez said after coming off the field with seven rounds of BP under his belt. “It’s a good idea by Kevin, and we’ll just take this for a while and take it from there.”

Here are today’s lineup, with original Blue Jays starter Brett Cecil being scratched with a cut on his left finger.

Girardi on Cano, who returned to the lineup after being struck in the foot by a pitch on Wednesday: “That’s one thing I don’t think people talk enough about is Robbie’s toughness. We’ve seen him hit plenty of times where we thought he wouldn’t play the next day or even stay in the game, and he does.”

Cory Wade does it again. Gives up a walk off hit and run to lose the game. This was a lousy game by the Yankees right from the beginning. Poor pitching by CC and way too little offense. It’s the usual game after a day off lacklustre effort. Hopefully they can bounce back tomorrow. Looks like the Sox could win their game so the lead is back to 3 1/2.

Jeter has grounded out constantly tonight. Not hitting the ball with authority inthe last few games. The team had a day off but they’re playing like they’re tired or apathetic. No spark. No intensity. No desperation. Maybe they’ve got too big a lead in the division and think they can coast. That can disappear in a hurry.

I think Girardi is pushing CC too far and it’s going to backfire here. CC has put way too many hitters on base tonight and he’s well over 100 pitches. Girardi often waits too long to pull his starters.

3 hits so far against a pretty mediocre pitcher at best. Offense is flat tonight and CC hasn’t been dominant and the result is the Yankees are behind. I don’t feel that this will be a win for the Yankees unless they really turn it around in the later innings. They are just coasting through this game.

CChas had men on base almost every inning. Way too many pitches the last inning. 2 walks kills him. Not really dominant tonight. Just hanging in there. You load the bases too many times and eventually it will come back to bite you and it did.

Come on. No ARod again? What’s with this guy, this injury? Did he have a fracture? He’s been out of the lineup most of the year being paid a huge salary to siton the bench. Really annoying. Sounds awfully wimpy to me. A sparined thumb? How many weeks has he been out now with a sprained thumb? He’ll have been out so long it will take him weeks to get back to anything near what he was last season. I don’t expect him to contribute a great deal going down the stretch and into the playoffs. Fortunately we’ve won most of our games without him. Hopefully CC will dominate tonight and pull out at win and put us at least 5 games ahead of the Sox depending on what they do against the RAys. Go Yankees! They’re playing in my backyard this weekend so got it on TV and going to the game with my grandson tomorrow.

Back in time

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